Chapter 4 "Launch" Summary

Two voices discuss isolating Ender so that he remains creative, while somehow also cultivating his leadership abilities. One of the two voices, presumably one of Ender's future trainers, intends to break Ender of his sweetness, confessing that he/she enjoys breaking young geniuses and seeing them reassembled into something better.

Ender boards the ship with the other child recruits, feeling estranged by their ready laughter. The ship takes off violently and soon everyone is in zero gravity. Imagining Colonel Graff walking on the ceiling, Ender chuckles in spite of himself. Graff, in clipped drill-sergeant address, demands to know what Ender thinks is so funny. Ender explains. Graff asks if anyone else thinks it's funny. No one does. Graff dismisses all the other recruits as "scumheads," predicting that Ender, as the only one among them who understands non-directional space, will...